All official team moves, including roster moves, franchise tag designations and free agent offers, must be sent to the above email address. Please do not use private messages, as the inbox holds a limited number of messages.

Please always include the following information as an email's subject for ease of reference:
TEAM NAME - DC USERNAME - SUBJECT

Below, the forum offseason process will be briefly outlined. Please feel free to contact me for clarification or for additional questions not covered below.

1. Username:
2. Cell Phone Number: (It will be very difficult to be accepted as a general manager without a cell phone number, as users without cell phones are the primary reason for delays during the draft.)3. List of teams you would be willing to manage (in order of preference):

I will not be assigning any co-general managers or assistant general managers unless explicitly requested by both parties. Once I have announced general managers, feel free to add co-GMs or assistant GMs.

SALARY CAP MANAGEMENT

Teams will begin with their current salary cap space as defined by the most recent salary cap projections; these figures are listed at the bottom of this post.

Teams which are over the salary cap will be forced to make cuts in order to clear cap space. In order to cut players, send an email to the address listed above with a list of players you would like to cut as well as a link to their Rotoworld page (where their contract details are shown.) All salary cap savings will be determined by Rotoworld for uniformity. I reserve the right to reject an unrealistic cut. Once a player has been cut, he will be added to the list of available free agents.

I will keep track of each move a team makes and how it affects their salary cap situation. Intermittent updates on salary cap situations will be provided as requested.

FRANCHISE TAG DESIGNATIONS/RESTRICTED FREE AGENCY

Before free agency begins, teams may designate franchise players and extend tenders to their restricted free agents. Designating a franchise player will grant him a one-year contract worth the average of the top five salaries at his position. The franchise tag tender amounts are as follows (rounded to one decimal place):

In restricted free agency, you may offer players one of the four tenders listed below. By tendering a player, you are designating which level of compensation you will receive by choosing not to match offers from other teams. However, higher tenders also cost more money. The restricted free agency tender amounts are as follows:

At a set time (to be determined once teams are announced), the free agent signing period will begin. At this point, general managers will no longer be allowed to designate franchise players or make offers to their restricted free agents; these players will enter the free agent pool.

You may remember that a four-tier system was used in last season's forum offseason; this year, the tiers will be replaced with a financial system in which teams will offer a contract which includes the number of years being offered as well as the contract's total value (represented as a whole number.) The average annual value of the contract will be subtracted from a team's available salary cap space. Below is an example of a free agent offer:

QB Joe Flacco: 5 years, $100 million

The team which signs Flacco will be spending $20 million of their available cap space, because $100 million divided by five years equals $20 million. If multiple teams offer contracts with the same total value, the free agent will be assigned to the team which offered fewer years. For example, a bid of four years and $100 million would take precedence over a bid of five years and $100 million because the average annual value is higher. However, the four-year bid would also be more costly to the signing team ($25 million as opposed to $20 million.)

If multiple teams offer a free agent identical contracts (ex. two teams each offer five years and $100 million), I will determine the free agent's destination.

There will be three rounds of free agency: two before the NFL Draft, and one afterwards. When submitting offers, please mention any contingencies; for example, if you would like to extend offers to Mike Wallace and Greg Jennings, but only want to sign one of the players, please specify that and list the players in order of preference. Feel free to submit an updated list of free agents after the first signing period.

The deadline for each round of free agent offers will be announced at the start of the free agent period.

TRADES

Trades will be selectively approved based on realism. I reserve the right to reject all trades which appear either uneven or unrealistic. It will be more difficult to trade star players and starters than reserves. Do not consider a trade approved without consulting me first; all approved trades will be posted in the trade thread. Trading for a player will affect your salary cap situation. No free agents signed may be traded; however, your franchise player may be traded as long as it appears to be an even, realistic trade. Player-for-player trades will almost never be approved; most trades will require at least one draft pick for approval. Future draft picks can be traded. Both parties must send identical trade submissions in order for a trade to be approved.

THE DRAFT

The draft clock will typically run from noon to midnight (Eastern Standard Time) unless otherwise specified; the clock will not run on weekends. Teams will have two hours to make their first-round pick and one hour to make additional picks. No teams will be skipped if their time expires; instead, I will make a selection for them unless their general manager has submitted a big board. I will attempt to contact all general managers when they are on the clock; however, not being contacted is not an excuse for missing a pick. Free agent signings will be suspended from the end of the second wave of free agency until after the draft concludes.

Brilliant letting one of Scott Pioli's henchmen have his own team to ruin. One of the premier GM jobs in the NFL and it gets handed to a stupid **** who makes three facepalm moves for every good one. Awesome. Just like handing a new Mercedes to a 16 year old girl who's already been in three wrecks.

Cap numbers will be based off of John Clayton's January 8th projections, with additional changes made to include transactions which took place between then and now. Players signed to reserve/future contracts will each count for $0.4 million against the cap and can be released to save the same amount. I tried to be generous by listing some additional signings as being worth $0.4 million; for example, Shaun Rogers (NYG.) I'm going to ignore any reserve/future signings made on January 8th, the date of Clayton's projections.

Brilliant letting one of Scott Pioli's henchmen have his own team to ruin. One of the premier GM jobs in the NFL and it gets handed to a stupid **** who makes three facepalm moves for every good one. Awesome. Just like handing a new Mercedes to a 16 year old girl who's already been in three wrecks.

I mostly just researched the cap savings figures from news reports, etc. I'm almost positive they were accurate, and for the most part I rounded down if necessary on cap hits and rounded up on cap savings. Either way, I'm not going to tweak them any further unless additional cuts are made before teams are assigned. Once I announce the teams, no real transactions will be included.

Are we required to save and/or get to a certain amount of cap space to sign our draft picks?

I've been thinking about this. I may end up making it a small amount which applies to every team regardless of draft position, like $4 million or so. Another option I was considering was requiring each team to save at least enough money to cover their first-round pick according to the draft scale; I could take the required money out of each team's cap in advance in order to simplify things.

Teams should be announced in an hour or so, only two more openings left! A majority of the users from last forum mock are returning, but some have new teams, and there are a few forum veterans joining in, as well as a couple of newcomers. Looks like a good group.